Are you arguing that rests shouldn't be enabled, and if so ,how does this impact a crafting system that is meant to be a downtime activity outside of an adventure, not inside one?
I'm saying it's the same problem.
An adventure that's balanced on the assumption that it will be completed in one day is super easy if the PCs instead take two days. Similarly, an adventure that's balanced on default resources will be super easy if the PCs come in with a whole bunch of items they crafted in downtime. What this means is
The PCs will always want more downtime.
The DM will always want to not give them downtime.
That's not a recipe for a healthy game. Much better to make downtime essentially valueless.
this is a DM problem not a system problem
if you do not want the players to have downtime, work your story to not give them downtime, if you dont want them to take a long rest for a day adventure, then make it so it isnt possible for it to happen.
Also if you never let your players be able to do things they want its gonna make for unhappy players.
Are you arguing that rests shouldn't be enabled, and if so ,how does this impact a crafting system that is meant to be a downtime activity outside of an adventure, not inside one?
I'm saying it's the same problem.
An adventure that's balanced on the assumption that it will be completed in one day is super easy if the PCs instead take two days. Similarly, an adventure that's balanced on default resources will be super easy if the PCs come in with a whole bunch of items they crafted in downtime. What this means is
The PCs will always want more downtime.
The DM will always want to not give them downtime.
That's not a recipe for a healthy game. Much better to make downtime essentially valueless.
Hmmm.
In 40 years of DMing games, both with my expanding personal group and open games where anyone could bring in anything, with crafting system and not, I have never, once, ever encountered a Player who wanted more downtime.
And I say that as someone who actively plays a lot of the downtime stuff that the overwhelming majority of games pretty much skip over entirely. We do downtime where players level up, have ceremonies, craft things, go shopping, raise funds, engage in the aspects of Renown and Piety that we track, and more. Those are among the most popular sessions -- but they are a single session at most, and they can last from one day to six months of game time, depending on the adventure. It is also when sub-plots (imbroglios) play out and new hooks are found and threads of plots are tugged on. They are the sessions that set up the next adventure or side quest..
That doesn't mean that I have experienced all that there is to offer, but I've likely had at least slightly more than most of the newer players (say, 5e start).
Is this a theoretical outcome on your part, or is it based in your experiences?
In terms of the science of human behavior, um, that ain't how it gonna work lol. Not sure I would be allowed to provide the foundations in social psychology to demonstrate that effectively here, but that's not an outcome that makes sense except among a small scale group, because downtime isn't generally played out like my group does it -- it is "hey everybody welcome back, we just finished Frost maiden and everyone is in the tavern. What did you do the last month? Cool cool, ok, let's go."
And that's ignoring the fact that rests are a key aspect of healing and recovery in the game at default.
None of which actually has a damn thing to do with crafting, except in the most broad sense of it is something that happens in downtime.
My players would be really angry if they couldn't do stuff in between adventures.
Also, not germane, but do you play a lot of adventures that are meant to be finished in a single day of game time? That's what, six to eight encounters, within 30 miles of a settlement of some sort? An encounter every 70 minutes, given the basic 8 hour period of the rules.
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Is this a theoretical outcome on your part, or is it based in your experiences?
It's based on experience in games that actually made downtime (beyond the long rest in D&D) significantly valuable, such as Ars Magica. It hasn't generally been an issue in D&D (other than the 'five minute workday' problem) precisely because D&D has never made downtime particularly valuable -- item crafting in AD&D was limited by having permanent constitution drain from casting the Permanency spell, in 3e it was mostly limited by gold and at higher levels by xp costs (and tended to break the system even so), in 4e it was entirely limited by gold (and because of how consumables and item levels worked in 4e, didn't matter much anyway), in 5e it's basically just not worth doing.
Is this a theoretical outcome on your part, or is it based in your experiences?
It's based on experience in games that actually made downtime (beyond the long rest in D&D) significantly valuable, such as Ars Magica. It hasn't generally been an issue in D&D (other than the 'five minute workday' problem) precisely because D&D has never made downtime particularly valuable -- item crafting in AD&D was limited by having permanent constitution drain from casting the Permanency spell, in 3e it was mostly limited by gold and at higher levels by xp costs (and tended to break the system even so), in 4e it was entirely limited by gold (and because of how consumables and item levels worked in 4e, didn't matter much anyway), in 5e it's basically just not worth doing.
Well, Ars has a very different structure, approach, and philosophy overall, so I'm not sure that the comparison can be made there.
Downtime has always been as valuable as the DM wants to make it. That's true from the 76 pub throught eh B?X through 1e and on.
You mention the constitution loss from permanency in 1e, but at the same time, Mages were supposed to be low con, and they also were supposed to have to find all their spells, never hand pick them. Haste was supposed to age you by three years.
Almost all of those things never happened in most games, though.
the introduction of proficiencies happened in 1e, as well (OA) -- and that was even more deeply explored in 2e, and it allowed a lot of stuff that we are talking about and never really had the kind of issues you are talking about. It simply isn't culturally a part of D&D as a whole to do so.
But, even if it was, wouldn't that be player driven and isn't the game as a whole meant to be about doing what is fun? If there is a conflict between DM and Players around it, they can work it out at their tables?
But this does help me to see where you are coming from in relation to the crafting system -- you would like to see a complete reworking of Rests to end their value to players (and, therefore, change how healing works throughout the game as a ripple effect of that) and you can generally be placed in the "no instcraft" category, and that you would prefer no crafting system in place (and now I have a better understanding of why).
Thank you for that.
I have to say that your concerns do not strike me as a problem for the vast majority of groups, however -- I do not think it would meet that 80% threshold of popularity that is so important to the designers. So arguing against it isn't going t do much good,overall -- it will be there even if it is simply in a slightly modified Xanathar's format, and rests aren't going away (indeed, they are becoming much more important in the next edition and in the opposite sense of your approach).
Not saying they aren't valid -- merely that you are tilting at windmills the same way I do about the optional features not being supported in DDB or the way they wrecked the hell out of all the classes. None of those concerns are going to shift anything in terms of what we see in the UAs or even the final product, because they are essentially small pop minority concerns in a popularity system.
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But this does help me to see where you are coming from in relation to the crafting system -- you would like to see a complete reworking of Rests to end their value to players
No, I want resting to be limited by something other thanin-game time, because absent a ticking clock scenario, in-game time doesn't actually mean anything to the players.
But this does help me to see where you are coming from in relation to the crafting system -- you would like to see a complete reworking of Rests to end their value to players
No, I want resting to be limited by something other thanin-game time, because absent a ticking clock scenario, in-game time doesn't actually mean anything to the players.
That's a valid point from your position. I thank you for the correction.
Given that right now they do have a crafting system in the game, and it is at the bare minimum going to remain, and that the resting system impacts every character class, do you have any constructive suggestions that would not significantly disrupt those existing systems and still be popular with 80% of the player base in your best estimation?
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Given that right now they do have a crafting system in the game, and it is at the bare minimum going to remain, and that the resting system impacts every character class, do you have any constructive suggestions that would not significantly disrupt those existing systems and still be popular with 80% of the player base in your best estimation?
80% of the player base doesn't actually care about crafting so "don't change anything" is the easiest solution there. My standard for a good crafting system is "encourages going out adventuring", either because it's useless, or because you can't actually do it without adventuring. The existing crafting system does accomplish that goal.
Given that right now they do have a crafting system in the game, and it is at the bare minimum going to remain, and that the resting system impacts every character class, do you have any constructive suggestions that would not significantly disrupt those existing systems and still be popular with 80% of the player base in your best estimation?
80% of the player base doesn't actually care about crafting so "don't change anything" is the easiest solution there. My standard for a good crafting system is "encourages going out adventuring", either because it's useless, or because you can't actually do it without adventuring. The existing crafting system does accomplish that goal.
Except that I suspect 80% of the player base *does* care about crafting.
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Except that I suspect 80% of the player base *does* care about crafting.
The fact that it's been sitting there largely unchanged since 2017 (XGtE) argues otherwise. People might be mildly interested, but most of them don't actively care.
Except that I suspect 80% of the player base *does* care about crafting.
The fact that it's been sitting there largely unchanged since 2017 (XGtE) argues otherwise. People might be mildly interested, but most of them don't actively care.
that...
isn't actually evidence of an absence of desire on the part of the player base.
Here, reddit, assorted fan mags and their articles, YT, and other sources all generally point to a much increase interest that begins around 2020 and just continues to grow. THey haven't release a new "to everything", likely because they were already working on the One D&D stuff. Hell, it's coming up on the poplar services far more often.
One could argue that the release of Bastions indicates they are revisiting it, as well, since Bastions engage with a crafting system.
I mean, there hasn't been a lot of interest in Bastion type systems until *very* recently, but by the same logic since they've never done one there isn't any interest in them. It really a bad point of reference.
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Here, reddit, assorted fan mags and their articles, YT, and other sources all generally point to a much increase interest that begins around 2020 and just continues to grow.
Really, none of that is an indicator of anything. You can create noise like that with 0.01% of the player base. The real sign of an unmet desire would be Wizards and/or a notable 3PP press producing something that actually sells.
What players want is for their characters to be self-sufficient and/or creative. For their gear to reflect some aspect of their personalities. To have cool stuff and to feel like they earned it. I think these ambitions can be served in other ways.
This game already has a system in place to make rewards feel earned, and to facilitate a degree of player choice in what they get. It's called leveling up.
Crafting could certainly be conceptualized as a piece of the leveling system. This would divorce it from in-game time in a manner that seems uncomfortable at first. But let's consider. Does a Fighter improve more at fighting in one day of cave crawling than he did over years of training? Or do we just accept that it doesn't make sense, because it plays better?
The problems to overcome with crafting are two: 1) Keep players from getting things that are too powerful for the level they're at, and 2) don't allow wild discrepancies in item wealth based on different amounts of downtime. The point is to flatten out the variance. Control it. Well! What's more controlled than the leveling system?
"At level 3, you finish working on a magic item. Choose one from this list."
The thing about that is that not everybody always wants to be crafting a magic item at all time.
Given that right now they do have a crafting system in the game, and it is at the bare minimum going to remain, and that the resting system impacts every character class, do you have any constructive suggestions that would not significantly disrupt those existing systems and still be popular with 80% of the player base in your best estimation?
80% of the player base doesn't actually care about crafting so "don't change anything" is the easiest solution there. My standard for a good crafting system is "encourages going out adventuring", either because it's useless, or because you can't actually do it without adventuring. The existing crafting system does accomplish that goal.
Given that right now they do have a crafting system in the game, and it is at the bare minimum going to remain, and that the resting system impacts every character class, do you have any constructive suggestions that would not significantly disrupt those existing systems and still be popular with 80% of the player base in your best estimation?
80% of the player base doesn't actually care about crafting so "don't change anything" is the easiest solution there. My standard for a good crafting system is "encourages going out adventuring", either because it's useless, or because you can't actually do it without adventuring. The existing crafting system does accomplish that goal.
What players want is for their characters to be self-sufficient.
This IMO is the big problem with today's players. D&D is a social game, the whole point is that characters are not self-sufficient, otherwise why do you need a DM and other players at the table? In a single-player game it is totally fine for the player to be totally self-sufficient and not need to interact with NPCs and just do whatever they want. But in a multiplayer-cooperative game, it sucks.
Tell that to whoever came up with the Ranger and Monk classes. And Barbarian. And arguably Sorcerer. Self-sufficiency has been a core fantasy of the game for a long time now.
An adventure that's balanced on the assumption that it will be completed in one day is super easy if the PCs instead take two days. Similarly, an adventure that's balanced on default resources will be super easy if the PCs come in with a whole bunch of items they crafted in downtime. What this means is
The PCs will always want more downtime.
The DM will always want to not give them downtime.
This is really good insight imo. Players can't ever truly know what's coming in an adventure so it behooves them (and their characters) to prepare as much as they can. Get as powerful as possible. There's simply no reason not to.
A good system acknowledges this fact and makes it part of the core assumptions so you need not waste time. Passive Perception was designed for this! The best choice was to look at everything so they just said, "let's assume they're always looking at everything." That way you get to skip all the instances of "I look closely at the door," "I look at the chest," "I look at the hallway," etc.
This is the basic system I have devised, going a little more in depth then whats in the book. This is for magic items only
Crafting Formula
Spell Slots Required + Materials Required + Time Required + Gold Cost + DC
Each day the character must spend 25 gold and 8 hours to make a Arcana check of the DC, if the check succeeds they can add a day's work, if the check fails that day's work is not applied. If the check fails by more than 10 the enchantment fails completely and all money spent and materials use is lost. Multiple characters can combine their efforts to create a magic item if each of them meets the level prerequisite. Each character can contribute spells, spell slots, and components, as long as everyone participates during the entire crafting process. Each character can contribute 25 gp worth of effort for each day spent helping to craft the item. If multiple characters are participating in enchanting of an item a roll of a natural 20 will counter a failed check on that day's worth of work.
Common Magic Items
Base Spell Slots: 6 Spell Levels (can be a mix of any level combination) Materials Required: Varies by item Time Required: 2 Days (8 hours each day) Gold Cost: 50 GP (25 each day) DC: 12
Uncommon Magic Items Base Spell Slots: 10 Spell Levels (can be a mix of any level combination) Materials Required: Varies by item Time Required: 20 Days (8 hours each day) Gold Cost: 500 GP (25 each day) DC: 15
Rare Magic Items Base Spell Slots: 30 Spell Levels (can be a mix of any level combination) Materials Required: Varies by item Time Required: 100 Days (8 hours each day) Gold Cost: 2500 GP (25 each day) DC: 16
Very Rare Magic Items Base Spell Slots: 50 Spell Levels (can be a mix of any level combination) Materials Required: Varies by item Time Required: 400 Days (8 hours each day) Gold Cost: 10,000 GP (25 each day) DC: 19 Legendary Magic Items Base Spell Slots: 75 Spell Levels (can be a mix of any level combination) Materials Required: Varies by item Time Required: 2000 Days (8 hours each day) Gold Cost: 50,000 GP (25 each day) DC: 22
This is jsut a generic guide, I am working on a Item by item cost and formula break down using the discerning merchants price guide and Hamund's Harvesting Handbook from GMS Guild as reference points for item costs and Material components.
I think its fine to have downtime activities, but players should also be able to actively pursue things, and, get things done while adventuring. I think exp should be another option for progressing certain things. The rules for crafting were kind of crazy to me, the time in workweeks was far beyond the time to level.
The time requirements for crafting are totally reasonable from a worldbuilding perspective. They're just ... not useful to most PCs.
everything is reasonable from a world building perspective, if you define it as what ever I say in lore makes sense.
it doesn't really make sense in terms of game design, consistency, or much else really.
20 days to create an uncommon item, why? game design wise thats super slow, lore wise, people can cast simulacrum and create a whole new magical person that lasts forever in 12 hours, yet for some reason it would take this guy 200 days of 8 hour work to make a dagger that does fire+piercing damage? It makes no real sense.
it makes sense from a standpoint of, we want it to take 200 days to make a rare item so people don't engage with this mechanic in normal games, and people wanting to profit in downtime are inefficient. But there were many possible solutions to the second issue, and the first is a questionable goal.
So, I am particularly big on the idea of crafting being a downtime thing. It took an effort for me to acknowledge that folks can crochet, do needlework, and knit in a dungeon, lol. But I want to point something out about that effort -- it was a player effort and it was mostly about me being willing to let them make socks while traveling and exploring.
Yes, that was the literal example that won me over, lol. I tend to approach things from a "real word" and then add fantasy to them. Iwas sort hung upon the whole "in the dungeon thing", and I was wrong to be so.
So, a mail shirt might take 500 hours to make. That's not the fantasy, that's the reality, It is shocking how easily one can google stuff, y'know?
That's a fairly standard "middle ages" baseline -- for mail. It also requires a workshop, and includes fitting and other factors, so for the "fantasy" part, I'd cut it down to probably 250 hours. TO people who make chain mail, that is easily the most unrealistic thing they could think of. So, fantasy part met.
Note that I describe Hours, as well. I don't deal in days, myself, I deal in hours.
Most standard portraiture done during that era took about 180 hours.
making a cask to age wine or bourbon in could take as much time as a chain shirt. You start to dig into things, and suddenly the notion of 200 hours for something seems, well, really gentle -- and these are non-magical items. Even if you can move away from the requirements for a workshop, the crafting of a dagger back then took far, far longer than it does today, where someone can use modern tools and technology (starting with a hearth and the ready presence of ingots) to make a knife in about six hours -- for them, it was a lot more time. Like 100 hours, easy.
because of the 8 hours a day rule, that means you can apply fatigue to time over 8 spent -- which shorten the number of day -- or you can have someone help and reduce that time (if done in shifts or combined), and so forth.
Again, this is before magical item stuff comes around.
I see magical item stuff as being the second stage in the creation of something -- they have to make an ordinary thing before they make a magical form of it. So the magical part might take less time -- I mean, generally, magic is pretty quick. So, if the "normal" phase of the item includes rare or unusual ingredients, it could easily take more time since they aren't part of the normal process.
THen comes the enchanting or imbuing or whatever, and that's a process as well.
So even then, most of the items that folks want to make during an adventure are still going to require downtime -- assuming that one tries to follow a realistic set up.
On the other hand, one can also go the videogame route -- "sure, you go the stuff? you got the tools? Go for it, make your roll."
That's going to be a hard sell to a lot of DMs and even more players. Enough to block it from reaching the 80% popularity point? I think so. Whereas I don't think that would be the case for a system that comes even marginally close to "reality".
I could be wrong -- as I noted, the PF system is popular among its folks.
on the other hand, the party now has less penalty as they tread into cold weather because when they were still in warmer lands, player A picked up a few skeins of yarn and started knitting and player b did the same and now the whole party has cold weather clothes.
how many hours of crafting time is that?
THe big challenge is always going to be the "i want to make it now, in the dungeon" crowd -- and ime, that isn't going to fly, because while carving a pretty basic, boring stick into a wand might not take a long time, the lore of the game world may add or require special materials, or intricate detailing, and all of that adds to the complexity of creating it.
what time period do you think dnd is representing?, making a dagger doesnt take 100 hours. In midevil times making a sword took a week, not working that hard, maybe 30 hours. Also this is world with magic, there should be some things that are relatively easier to achieve through magic. I can't speak to crafting armor, but in game it costs way more to make full plate, so it might not surprise me that it takes longer. As an artist, the 180 hours on a portrait thing, highly depends on the skill of the artist, and maybe the medium.180 is on the high side though.
However, I wouldn't assume the time consuming part of crafting is the magic side. Or that everyone crafting something is starting from scratch. Magic generally appears to take a lot less time than doing mundane things, and is more about skill than time. Its probable that someone might buy or repurpose basic mundane parts of magic items rather making them. The problem with using time as a basis, as you pointed out, its not really time that actually decides how common something is. Making a gold ring is a lot less time consuming than making a sword. There are relatively common things that take a long amount of hours, and relatively rare things that take less. Some things are rare due to requiring people of high skill, or because of the resources, or number of people. From a creating things point, designing or coming up with something new, or more pretty, can be the most difficult part.
As far as crafting in a dungeon, that probably depends what you are doing, and how you are doing it. I imagine a dude with a Magnificent mansion of forging wouldn't have much trouble. Likewise, a guy with heat metal can make red hot metal instantly instead of having to heat up a forge and all the inefficiencies that brings. Person with a bag of holding can have the best tools available instantly.
But a 5e level crafting system doesnt need to be realistic first and foremost, it mostly needs to meet the needs of players and be fun. And probably needs to fit the fiction of the world enough not to break the avg immersion.
I can grant that a sword takes 60 hours to make using a medieval sword, assuming that is the only thing a single blacksmith is working on in a given week. I would hope that said blacksmith has several apprentices of differing capabilities working for them so that their shop could still stay open, working on other things.
On the portraiture -- that's a literal average of the amount of time most sittings took. It wasn't merely a factor of an artist sitting down and painting start to finish, it was an aspect of time for the modes to sit, time to get the right lighting, and of course, the all important you will get this right or you won't be paid for it" factor. Since broad wealth of merchants wasn't a common feature enabling strong patronage outside of major trading hubs until into the 1400s, portraiture was often limited to the nobility and in folklore Nobility had a propensity to lop off heads of artists who displeased them.
Yo asked what time period: the time period is generally thought to be 600 through 1400, in terms of Europe. I go off on tangents about this, so will try hard to avoid talking about it (pseudo-Greco-Roman/Dark/Early Middle/Late Middle/Renaissance/Victorian/Edwardian with elements of Middle period Egypt, Abbasid (6th C), and other such, primarily pre through late stage silk road).
The pair of us agree on the magic part not generally taking near as long -- my general take slots in alongside your "creating new or more pretty" part, as the introduction of non-standard materials (the heart of a gryphon) tends to create challenges in the fabrication process of the core item.
I will say that given there is no magical forge creation spell (The Mag Mansion doesn't create a forge, and even if it did, anything removed from it would vanish once you step outside it or the spell ends), that heat metal doesn't remove the need to have a hammer, anvil, quenching, honig, and carving stuff. I do grant that a bag of holding could hold those things (though that Anvil is going to be a pain -- those plain simple blocks were usually only about 20kg flat topped hunks, but the non-moving base was what was really important, and you can't get that in a dungeon).
But this, of course, is all presuming that we are dealing with Smithing -- which is not the only skill or craft possible. Of course, we are also skipping over the big part about this. In the time period in general use, iron had to be alloyed -- or made into steel. Making steel in a standard furnace was the blacksmith's job -- they had to take the time to do it, which was generally a couple days, because they had to get to the high temperatures and keep it there -- a kg of steel could take two days to make, and that's before it was molded into a bar. A simple iron sword was quick, comparatively, to the finer, more in demand steel.
And yeah, in those days most blacksmiths didn't make swords -- you had to be someone who was taught in a special place to do so by someone who had an arrangement with a noble or other patron who could afford the raw ores, and usually you worked as part of a larger smithy under the aegis there. We are dealing with a higher level of demand than they did and of course the essential fantasy aspect of "well, go see a blacksmith for a sword".
(this also raises the question of why an adventurer would need to forge a sword in a dungeon. I mean, default rules don't have weapons break all that much, and it is entirely possible for a sword they start with at 1st level to be the sword then end with at 20th level, lol)
All of which really shows that the use of smithing as an example is really a bad one for this purpose -- while one can try to twist and invet and sort of kludge one's way into "ok, yeah, maybe", it really is a lot of work to justify something that is generally going to be a downtime activity overall.
Other crafts, well, they are different.
Handiwork -- the crochet, embroidery, needlepoint, lace making, knitting kind of stuff is absolutely a craft that can be done in dungeons -- and, much to the surprise of many, was something that sold far more highly than many blacksmith's good. I'd even argue it could be done during rest periods. A pair of trousers in that time period could cost more than a sword (mostly because they didn't wear trousers -- they wore woven or knitted leggings).
The weaving arts -- rug making, cloth weaving, spinning, carding -- are a little different. One could card easily, and I suppose a spinning wheel could be dropping a bag of holding. Some of the small looms that were used could be done (nothing big, mind you, talking about a meter wide and maybe a meter and a half high), i suppose.
Instrument making could be done is bits and pieces. But that is also a much more involved process, specially once you get into lamination.
Some of the clothing crafts would work -- glove making, cobbling, hat making. Plain old tailoring/seamstry requires a good amount of light.
Not going to be much chandlery or ink making, no enameling or tanning going on. So, just sitting down to really think about it, when folks talk about Crafting they really don't mean actually using crafts.
They may mean smithing -- black, silver, gold, white, copper, farrying --but no, what they really mean is "magically taking things they find and turning them into something else".
Now, I say that because I have a list of around 200 actual crafts and skills and such that were common to the period. And my Adventures can take a few months to resolve in-game time. But my understanding is that most adventures for most other people take place over a period of days -- often fewer than 15. Where downtime is filled in with camping and cooking and bedding down for the night -- but also apparently no one does random wilderness encounters at 3 am, depriving them of a long rest, etc.
I never hear about people hauling their wagons up to a dungeon entrance, making them ready to haul away heaps of treasure, carrying their adventuring supplies like water and food stuff and cooking gear (because the usual travel pot is about enough for 1, after two hours of cooking). Setting a guard on the goods as they dive in, hauling stuff back through the dungeon to get it to the carts.
My group plays all of that. because things happen, and there is a reason player's are generally expected to make their own maps (something VTT is killing) and they do forget wherethose traps they got past were.
but we also do see the entire thing as being like a book, not a movie or video game. All of that is part of the story of the characters. It does go a lot faster, don't get me wrong ("We're leaving." Seven minutes later in real time they've done five hours in-game of work getting out of what took them fifteen days in-game and six months of session time getting into).
Crafting to make money? Yeah, possible -- but most actal crafts took multiples of actual hours longer then than they do today. To buy a bolt of cloth -- we'll say simple muslin, not even high grade -- would have cost as much as a typical village merchant earned in 3 months, at the minimum. Those bolts might be enough to make 1 tunic.
There is a degree of fantasy involved -- no question, but how you apply that fantasy is one thing. "I can make a bolt of cloth with magic". Well then, make a bolt of cloth with magic. Use that spell slot on fabricate. go for it.
That isn't crafting, though. That's using magic to make something. And not everyone -- not even all magic users -- can do it.
Simply put, there is no "realistic in the same sense as the rest of the game, even abstract like HP" way to do "I want to make a +3 Flametongue Battle Axe for my character in the middle of this adventure in a matter of a couple of hours."
Which is not an argument against a crafting system.
I took that list of 200 ad boiled it down to around 30 things, based on what they do and what they need to do it. That gave me about 30 crafting skills that ca be used to create things during downtime. And it means tat there are ways to create a magical weapon -- during downtime -- as part of preparation.
Potions of healing and other odds and ends, yep, they can make those too. The big thing is that even a fighter in my game can do it -- they need to do a bunch of stuff and they cannot do it alone, but they can make it happen. Are they going to make a wand of fireballs? Well, if they can get the stuff to do it, yeah -- and I'm not going to stop them, but it will take them a bit to do it in terms of in-game time, even if actual play time is only ten, fifteen minutes.
This is why I say that if what folks want is a Video Game Crafting system -- I stop in the dungeon and make a thing really fast while we are waiting -- that's going to crash and burn as far as 2024 rules go. They aren't going to create that. Such a thing would need to be a home brewed set up.
THe same way that my more involved and researched one would do the same. But what I did is closer to what the game currently has, and builds off what it already has in place.
If 80% of the players of the game decide they want a video game crafting system, then they may indeed put one in -- I'm not saying that isn't a possibility. But I don't see it as such -- most folks want that semblance of reality.
Some things here
so, if you are saying portraiture took 180 hours for reasons that have nothing to do with how long it takes to paint, then its not really relvent to crafting time. Thats more a case of working with nobles takes 140 hours. painting might take 40. I am an artist, it varies greatly from artist to artist. I'm fairly slow, but i can go to the city in my area, and see portrait artists do paintings way better than dark age artists in 30 minutes.
I went to college for mech engineering, and you apparently know mech engineers. So I know a bit about manufacturing. There is a lot you can do with a mill or a lathe, you probably aren't doing every part of any crafting process. Weavers would probably buy textiles, or reclaim it. Time breakdowns have a lot to do with economics, workflows, specific needs of the crafter. Mansion has whatever inside it you want it to have. There is no qualitative difference between a fireplace, furnishings and a workshop. A workshop just contains furniture with a different shape. The servants can do things, mend clothes and perform tasks humans could is specifically mentioned. Things taken from the mansion might disappear, but that doesnt matter. You bring materials, you shape and work the materials in the mansion. A nail I bring from bag of holding(or a plain pack) hammered in by a mansion hammer by an unseen servant would still be hammered when I leave.
But part of the issue with trying to deep dive here, is that dark ages with the world and magic 5e presents makes no real sense. Wizards go to colleges, (any person can learn magic) study for years and can manipulate the world more easily and in ways we can't duplicate with current technology. They have sending stones as a low level tech, the can mend things low level. There is no way that you can have this level of magical technology, information sharing, and institutional development and be in the dark ages. Something as simple as a steam engine. (simple in concept, an object that creates motion with a common resource) revolutionized the world in a short time frame. There is no way a society with the power of cantrips existing wouldn't be more advanced than this. Every craftsman would be some level of wizard. Spells would be created for craftsmanship, not just adventuring.(craftsmen spend 1000s of hours doing this, learning basic spells is a lesser task). It would have to be an intentional and rigorously enforced separation of knowledge.
But this is fine, because its a fantasy and we hand wave things, and use our best judgement to smooth it over to tell a story, or play a game. Thats the thing here, we all know most of dnd is designed as a game. Its a far cry from realism, or even consistency from lore to game. So really its mostly a matter of what makes sense for the game, and in 5e, and ttrpg in general, a lot of that depends what the players want to do. The DMG's purpose is to create a framework for fleshing out games to match your table. A crafting system there would be for people who like crafting. And should be able to be incorporated into a game. The explanation of how comes after that idea. Like a bag of holding which is merely uncommon, which in our world would revolutionalize everything.
I think its fine to have downtime activities, but players should also be able to actively pursue things, and, get things done while adventuring. I think exp should be another option for progressing certain things. The rules for crafting were kind of crazy to me, the time in workweeks was far beyond the time to level.
The time requirements for crafting are totally reasonable from a worldbuilding perspective. They're just ... not useful to most PCs.
everything is reasonable from a world building perspective, if you define it as what ever I say in lore makes sense.
it doesn't really make sense in terms of game design, consistency, or much else really.
20 days to create an uncommon item, why? game design wise thats super slow, lore wise, people can cast simulacrum and create a whole new magical person that lasts forever in 12 hours, yet for some reason it would take this guy 200 days of 8 hour work to make a dagger that does fire+piercing damage? It makes no real sense.
it makes sense from a standpoint of, we want it to take 200 days to make a rare item so people don't engage with this mechanic in normal games, and people wanting to profit in downtime are inefficient. But there were many possible solutions to the second issue, and the first is a questionable goal.
So, I am particularly big on the idea of crafting being a downtime thing. It took an effort for me to acknowledge that folks can crochet, do needlework, and knit in a dungeon, lol. But I want to point something out about that effort -- it was a player effort and it was mostly about me being willing to let them make socks while traveling and exploring.
Yes, that was the literal example that won me over, lol. I tend to approach things from a "real word" and then add fantasy to them. Iwas sort hung upon the whole "in the dungeon thing", and I was wrong to be so.
So, a mail shirt might take 500 hours to make. That's not the fantasy, that's the reality, It is shocking how easily one can google stuff, y'know?
That's a fairly standard "middle ages" baseline -- for mail. It also requires a workshop, and includes fitting and other factors, so for the "fantasy" part, I'd cut it down to probably 250 hours. TO people who make chain mail, that is easily the most unrealistic thing they could think of. So, fantasy part met.
Note that I describe Hours, as well. I don't deal in days, myself, I deal in hours.
Most standard portraiture done during that era took about 180 hours.
making a cask to age wine or bourbon in could take as much time as a chain shirt. You start to dig into things, and suddenly the notion of 200 hours for something seems, well, really gentle -- and these are non-magical items. Even if you can move away from the requirements for a workshop, the crafting of a dagger back then took far, far longer than it does today, where someone can use modern tools and technology (starting with a hearth and the ready presence of ingots) to make a knife in about six hours -- for them, it was a lot more time. Like 100 hours, easy.
because of the 8 hours a day rule, that means you can apply fatigue to time over 8 spent -- which shorten the number of day -- or you can have someone help and reduce that time (if done in shifts or combined), and so forth.
Again, this is before magical item stuff comes around.
I see magical item stuff as being the second stage in the creation of something -- they have to make an ordinary thing before they make a magical form of it. So the magical part might take less time -- I mean, generally, magic is pretty quick. So, if the "normal" phase of the item includes rare or unusual ingredients, it could easily take more time since they aren't part of the normal process.
THen comes the enchanting or imbuing or whatever, and that's a process as well.
So even then, most of the items that folks want to make during an adventure are still going to require downtime -- assuming that one tries to follow a realistic set up.
On the other hand, one can also go the videogame route -- "sure, you go the stuff? you got the tools? Go for it, make your roll."
That's going to be a hard sell to a lot of DMs and even more players. Enough to block it from reaching the 80% popularity point? I think so. Whereas I don't think that would be the case for a system that comes even marginally close to "reality".
I could be wrong -- as I noted, the PF system is popular among its folks.
on the other hand, the party now has less penalty as they tread into cold weather because when they were still in warmer lands, player A picked up a few skeins of yarn and started knitting and player b did the same and now the whole party has cold weather clothes.
how many hours of crafting time is that?
THe big challenge is always going to be the "i want to make it now, in the dungeon" crowd -- and ime, that isn't going to fly, because while carving a pretty basic, boring stick into a wand might not take a long time, the lore of the game world may add or require special materials, or intricate detailing, and all of that adds to the complexity of creating it.
what time period do you think dnd is representing?, making a dagger doesnt take 100 hours. In midevil times making a sword took a week, not working that hard, maybe 30 hours. Also this is world with magic, there should be some things that are relatively easier to achieve through magic. I can't speak to crafting armor, but in game it costs way more to make full plate, so it might not surprise me that it takes longer. As an artist, the 180 hours on a portrait thing, highly depends on the skill of the artist, and maybe the medium.180 is on the high side though.
However, I wouldn't assume the time consuming part of crafting is the magic side. Or that everyone crafting something is starting from scratch. Magic generally appears to take a lot less time than doing mundane things, and is more about skill than time. Its probable that someone might buy or repurpose basic mundane parts of magic items rather making them. The problem with using time as a basis, as you pointed out, its not really time that actually decides how common something is. Making a gold ring is a lot less time consuming than making a sword. There are relatively common things that take a long amount of hours, and relatively rare things that take less. Some things are rare due to requiring people of high skill, or because of the resources, or number of people. From a creating things point, designing or coming up with something new, or more pretty, can be the most difficult part.
As far as crafting in a dungeon, that probably depends what you are doing, and how you are doing it. I imagine a dude with a Magnificent mansion of forging wouldn't have much trouble. Likewise, a guy with heat metal can make red hot metal instantly instead of having to heat up a forge and all the inefficiencies that brings. Person with a bag of holding can have the best tools available instantly.
But a 5e level crafting system doesnt need to be realistic first and foremost, it mostly needs to meet the needs of players and be fun. And probably needs to fit the fiction of the world enough not to break the avg immersion.
I can grant that a sword takes 60 hours to make using a medieval sword, assuming that is the only thing a single blacksmith is working on in a given week. I would hope that said blacksmith has several apprentices of differing capabilities working for them so that their shop could still stay open, working on other things.
On the portraiture -- that's a literal average of the amount of time most sittings took. It wasn't merely a factor of an artist sitting down and painting start to finish, it was an aspect of time for the modes to sit, time to get the right lighting, and of course, the all important you will get this right or you won't be paid for it" factor. Since broad wealth of merchants wasn't a common feature enabling strong patronage outside of major trading hubs until into the 1400s, portraiture was often limited to the nobility and in folklore Nobility had a propensity to lop off heads of artists who displeased them.
Yo asked what time period: the time period is generally thought to be 600 through 1400, in terms of Europe. I go off on tangents about this, so will try hard to avoid talking about it (pseudo-Greco-Roman/Dark/Early Middle/Late Middle/Renaissance/Victorian/Edwardian with elements of Middle period Egypt, Abbasid (6th C), and other such, primarily pre through late stage silk road).
The pair of us agree on the magic part not generally taking near as long -- my general take slots in alongside your "creating new or more pretty" part, as the introduction of non-standard materials (the heart of a gryphon) tends to create challenges in the fabrication process of the core item.
I will say that given there is no magical forge creation spell (The Mag Mansion doesn't create a forge, and even if it did, anything removed from it would vanish once you step outside it or the spell ends), that heat metal doesn't remove the need to have a hammer, anvil, quenching, honig, and carving stuff. I do grant that a bag of holding could hold those things (though that Anvil is going to be a pain -- those plain simple blocks were usually only about 20kg flat topped hunks, but the non-moving base was what was really important, and you can't get that in a dungeon).
But this, of course, is all presuming that we are dealing with Smithing -- which is not the only skill or craft possible. Of course, we are also skipping over the big part about this. In the time period in general use, iron had to be alloyed -- or made into steel. Making steel in a standard furnace was the blacksmith's job -- they had to take the time to do it, which was generally a couple days, because they had to get to the high temperatures and keep it there -- a kg of steel could take two days to make, and that's before it was molded into a bar. A simple iron sword was quick, comparatively, to the finer, more in demand steel.
And yeah, in those days most blacksmiths didn't make swords -- you had to be someone who was taught in a special place to do so by someone who had an arrangement with a noble or other patron who could afford the raw ores, and usually you worked as part of a larger smithy under the aegis there. We are dealing with a higher level of demand than they did and of course the essential fantasy aspect of "well, go see a blacksmith for a sword".
(this also raises the question of why an adventurer would need to forge a sword in a dungeon. I mean, default rules don't have weapons break all that much, and it is entirely possible for a sword they start with at 1st level to be the sword then end with at 20th level, lol)
All of which really shows that the use of smithing as an example is really a bad one for this purpose -- while one can try to twist and invet and sort of kludge one's way into "ok, yeah, maybe", it really is a lot of work to justify something that is generally going to be a downtime activity overall.
Other crafts, well, they are different.
Handiwork -- the crochet, embroidery, needlepoint, lace making, knitting kind of stuff is absolutely a craft that can be done in dungeons -- and, much to the surprise of many, was something that sold far more highly than many blacksmith's good. I'd even argue it could be done during rest periods. A pair of trousers in that time period could cost more than a sword (mostly because they didn't wear trousers -- they wore woven or knitted leggings).
The weaving arts -- rug making, cloth weaving, spinning, carding -- are a little different. One could card easily, and I suppose a spinning wheel could be dropping a bag of holding. Some of the small looms that were used could be done (nothing big, mind you, talking about a meter wide and maybe a meter and a half high), i suppose.
Instrument making could be done is bits and pieces. But that is also a much more involved process, specially once you get into lamination.
Some of the clothing crafts would work -- glove making, cobbling, hat making. Plain old tailoring/seamstry requires a good amount of light.
Not going to be much chandlery or ink making, no enameling or tanning going on. So, just sitting down to really think about it, when folks talk about Crafting they really don't mean actually using crafts.
They may mean smithing -- black, silver, gold, white, copper, farrying --but no, what they really mean is "magically taking things they find and turning them into something else".
Now, I say that because I have a list of around 200 actual crafts and skills and such that were common to the period. And my Adventures can take a few months to resolve in-game time. But my understanding is that most adventures for most other people take place over a period of days -- often fewer than 15. Where downtime is filled in with camping and cooking and bedding down for the night -- but also apparently no one does random wilderness encounters at 3 am, depriving them of a long rest, etc.
I never hear about people hauling their wagons up to a dungeon entrance, making them ready to haul away heaps of treasure, carrying their adventuring supplies like water and food stuff and cooking gear (because the usual travel pot is about enough for 1, after two hours of cooking). Setting a guard on the goods as they dive in, hauling stuff back through the dungeon to get it to the carts.
My group plays all of that. because things happen, and there is a reason player's are generally expected to make their own maps (something VTT is killing) and they do forget wherethose traps they got past were.
but we also do see the entire thing as being like a book, not a movie or video game. All of that is part of the story of the characters. It does go a lot faster, don't get me wrong ("We're leaving." Seven minutes later in real time they've done five hours in-game of work getting out of what took them fifteen days in-game and six months of session time getting into).
Crafting to make money? Yeah, possible -- but most actal crafts took multiples of actual hours longer then than they do today. To buy a bolt of cloth -- we'll say simple muslin, not even high grade -- would have cost as much as a typical village merchant earned in 3 months, at the minimum. Those bolts might be enough to make 1 tunic.
There is a degree of fantasy involved -- no question, but how you apply that fantasy is one thing. "I can make a bolt of cloth with magic". Well then, make a bolt of cloth with magic. Use that spell slot on fabricate. go for it.
That isn't crafting, though. That's using magic to make something. And not everyone -- not even all magic users -- can do it.
Simply put, there is no "realistic in the same sense as the rest of the game, even abstract like HP" way to do "I want to make a +3 Flametongue Battle Axe for my character in the middle of this adventure in a matter of a couple of hours."
Which is not an argument against a crafting system.
I took that list of 200 ad boiled it down to around 30 things, based on what they do and what they need to do it. That gave me about 30 crafting skills that ca be used to create things during downtime. And it means tat there are ways to create a magical weapon -- during downtime -- as part of preparation.
Potions of healing and other odds and ends, yep, they can make those too. The big thing is that even a fighter in my game can do it -- they need to do a bunch of stuff and they cannot do it alone, but they can make it happen. Are they going to make a wand of fireballs? Well, if they can get the stuff to do it, yeah -- and I'm not going to stop them, but it will take them a bit to do it in terms of in-game time, even if actual play time is only ten, fifteen minutes.
This is why I say that if what folks want is a Video Game Crafting system -- I stop in the dungeon and make a thing really fast while we are waiting -- that's going to crash and burn as far as 2024 rules go. They aren't going to create that. Such a thing would need to be a home brewed set up.
THe same way that my more involved and researched one would do the same. But what I did is closer to what the game currently has, and builds off what it already has in place.
If 80% of the players of the game decide they want a video game crafting system, then they may indeed put one in -- I'm not saying that isn't a possibility. But I don't see it as such -- most folks want that semblance of reality.
Some things here
so, if you are saying portraiture took 180 hours for reasons that have nothing to do with how long it takes to paint, then its not really relvent to crafting time. Thats more a case of working with nobles takes 140 hours. painting might take 40. I am an artist, it varies greatly from artist to artist. I'm fairly slow, but i can go to the city in my area, and see portrait artists do paintings way better than dark age artists in 30 minutes.
I went to college for mech engineering, and you apparently know mech engineers. So I know a bit about manufacturing. There is a lot you can do with a mill or a lathe, you probably aren't doing every part of any crafting process. Weavers would probably buy textiles, or reclaim it. Time breakdowns have a lot to do with economics, workflows, specific needs of the crafter. Mansion has whatever inside it you want it to have. There is no qualitative difference between a fireplace, furnishings and a workshop. A workshop just contains furniture with a different shape. The servants can do things, mend clothes and perform tasks humans could is specifically mentioned. Things taken from the mansion might disappear, but that doesnt matter. You bring materials, you shape and work the materials in the mansion. A nail I bring from bag of holding(or a plain pack) hammered in by a mansion hammer by an unseen servant would still be hammered when I leave.
But part of the issue with trying to deep dive here, is that dark ages with the world and magic 5e presents makes no real sense. Wizards go to colleges, (any person can learn magic) study for years and can manipulate the world more easily and in ways we can't duplicate with current technology. They have sending stones as a low level tech, the can mend things low level. There is no way that you can have this level of magical technology, information sharing, and institutional development and be in the dark ages. Something as simple as a steam engine. (simple in concept, an object that creates motion with a common resource) revolutionized the world in a short time frame. There is no way a society with the power of cantrips existing wouldn't be more advanced than this. Every craftsman would be some level of wizard. Spells would be created for craftsmanship, not just adventuring.(craftsmen spend 1000s of hours doing this, learning basic spells is a lesser task). It would have to be an intentional and rigorously enforced separation of knowledge.
But this is fine, because its a fantasy and we hand wave things, and use our best judgement to smooth it over to tell a story, or play a game. Thats the thing here, we all know most of dnd is designed as a game. Its a far cry from realism, or even consistency from lore to game. So really its mostly a matter of what makes sense for the game, and in 5e, and ttrpg in general, a lot of that depends what the players want to do. The DMG's purpose is to create a framework for fleshing out games to match your table. A crafting system there would be for people who like crafting. And should be able to be incorporated into a game. The explanation of how comes after that idea. Like a bag of holding which is merely uncommon, which in our world would revolutionalize everything.
Well, the issue for crafting isn't just "how long does it take that person to do it", though. The issue really is "how long does it take for that craftwork to be completed from start to finish".
As for "way better", well you do have access to premixed bases, pre stretched canvas, safe pigments from typically synthetic sources and a whole lot more stuff that is wholly and entirely a product of the technological advances since then (speaking of, did you catch the stuff about the non-ochre reds and Da Vinci's invention of one of the most popular pint formulas?), and some pretty significant training in perspective and perception that simply did not exist widely previously.
You mention the steam engine. Were you aware that they had the Steam engine in BCE? You mention mills and lathes -- but those were not only not common, they wEren't well known or used often. In short, a lot of what you are pointing out is is what feeds into your later point -- that the level of technology we should be looking at in D&D shouldn't be based in the 600 to 1400 time period (6000 BCE to 1500 AD broad).
Much of what you go into after that is the use of magic in place of technology, and that's a valid point -- it is how we get Eberron. However, note that Eberron is not as popular as FR. I, for one, wouldn't use such a world that involves "magitech" unless it was a modern day setting. And by Modern day, I don't mean steampunk, I mean 2025 or later. For a really simple reason: not everyone can use magic.
That point of yours is actually not a rule. It is a setting concept, a bit of Lore that is specific to a given world, and on my world, it fails. you see, while everyone can use magic, most people have so little that it exhausts them to try, and can only do it in a ritual circle. Say, roughly, 3 points of energy, use all your energy you pass out, and a cantrip costs 1 point. What makes a Mage different is their ability to hold that energy -- in broader terms, that they can gather enough to use a spell slot.
And everything I just noted is part of Lore, not mechanics. Which i do because you were arguing that all the worlds created to use D&D operate with magic as a technology, and most do not.
Absolutely some do. Not even arguing that. I also can't say that is isn't a slim majority -- I can argue that it is not the 80% level that the designers seek. Artificer is still not a wholly beloved class, and versions of it have been around since the mid 80's.
When you say "There is no way that you can have this level of magical technology, information sharing, and institutional development" you are making presumptions about a lot of folks worlds -- over half of which are entirely custom worlds, because more than half of the games that are played are played on worlds that are not a creation, even a little, of any of the published D&D worlds -- and trust me, you do not want to do that. It insults all those other people, lol.
"There is no way a society with the power of cantrips existing wouldn't be more advanced than this. Every craftsman would be some level of wizard. Spells would be created for craftsmanship, not just adventuring." is your opinion, and it is not a popular opinion among most D&D players (not all, merely most). Because it isn't a new opinion, and yet D&D persists with people wielding swords and we don't have repeating rifles driven by magical cartridges and we don't suborbital platforms launched by magic and ...
... do not think that I am saying those things are bad. I have helped people create such worlds, so I completely understand your point. But by the exact same basis of "it has to work this way!", there are fantasy worlds where the physics and chemistry that make a lot of these things possible do not exist -- even with magic. Indeed, because of magic. I am only one of several folks with PHDs at my table, and seriously, I twist them in knots because they keep wanting to apply real world physics to a game.
Go out and look up worldbuilding forums and sites and you will find that there is a LOT of that kind of discourse out there. We worldbuilders are very particular about that kind of thing, and I can remember a six month, 10,000 reply thread from the 90's, on the subject.After all, we are talking about magic -- and magic does not have to replace technology, and magic does not have to be technology. Sometimes, it is just magic.
The game world I have is still an Iron cored planet, but the iron isn't found within the crust -- but aluminum is, and then it is found in actual deposits of metallic ore that do not require precipitation, merely heat. THe manufacturing system is completely different. Iron is rare, and that is mostly from an extrasolar source that is no longer even remotely possible, save for a limited degree with an oort cloud that has an atypical structure.
Super useless information -- except it also provides a lot of reason why some stuff works and other things don't. Nor is my world an outlier in that -- stuff like that is very common.
Incidentally, you mention "rigorously enforced and controlled separation of knowledge" -- guess what: that was the norm between 600 AD and 1300 AD. It goes back even further -- historically, the knowledge of ways and means of creating or locating materials for creating was held tighter than trade secrets are today, and with far more serious penalties (death). Marco Polo's story is a huge example of that. Why do you think we are just now discovering and figuring out Romans built waterproof concrete, or why we still haven't figured out what greek fire was?
The part that will make you pull your hair out is that I don't disagree with you, lol. D&D needs a whole host of spells that deal with and replace technology in it, though -- and have you see them, or do you just think that they should be there, despite 5 editions where they still haven't done that?
But this is fine, because its a fantasy and we hand wave things, and use our best judgement to smooth it over to tell a story, or play a game. Thats the thing here, we all know most of dnd is designed as a game. Its a far cry from realism, or even consistency from lore to game. So really its mostly a matter of what makes sense for the game, and in 5e, and ttrpg in general, a lot of that depends what the players want to do. The DMG's purpose is to create a framework for fleshing out games to match your table. A crafting system there would be for people who like crafting. And should be able to be incorporated into a game. The explanation of how comes after that idea. Like a bag of holding which is merely uncommon, which in our world would revolutionalize everything.
On this part we are both wholly in agreement. The big key is that if it is something that is going to make it into the 2024 books, it has to be something that meets that 80% popularity metric.
It isn't "what is possible, what makes sense, what's the coolest thing", it is "what makes 80% of all players happy", is simple, easy, and meets the vast majority of the "pretend fantasy era of the imaginary 600 AD to 1400 AD/Tolkien's Middle Earth but different" games out there. Like I said, they want that kind of "realism light" I'm talking about.
Because that is the fantasy world that they want to deal with.
I mentioned my fellow players having assorted education -- mine is in sociology and psychology and religion (guess what I focus on in my world building Just wild guess, lol). I have a huge love of history and all that and my top five favorite books are all reference books, including one that is a timeline of global events going back over 6000 years. Technology is a section of it, and I'll tell ya, most people seriously overestimate the level of technology that was available prior to about 1600.
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this is a DM problem not a system problem
if you do not want the players to have downtime, work your story to not give them downtime, if you dont want them to take a long rest for a day adventure, then make it so it isnt possible for it to happen.
Also if you never let your players be able to do things they want its gonna make for unhappy players.
Hmmm.
In 40 years of DMing games, both with my expanding personal group and open games where anyone could bring in anything, with crafting system and not, I have never, once, ever encountered a Player who wanted more downtime.
And I say that as someone who actively plays a lot of the downtime stuff that the overwhelming majority of games pretty much skip over entirely. We do downtime where players level up, have ceremonies, craft things, go shopping, raise funds, engage in the aspects of Renown and Piety that we track, and more. Those are among the most popular sessions -- but they are a single session at most, and they can last from one day to six months of game time, depending on the adventure. It is also when sub-plots (imbroglios) play out and new hooks are found and threads of plots are tugged on. They are the sessions that set up the next adventure or side quest..
That doesn't mean that I have experienced all that there is to offer, but I've likely had at least slightly more than most of the newer players (say, 5e start).
Is this a theoretical outcome on your part, or is it based in your experiences?
In terms of the science of human behavior, um, that ain't how it gonna work lol. Not sure I would be allowed to provide the foundations in social psychology to demonstrate that effectively here, but that's not an outcome that makes sense except among a small scale group, because downtime isn't generally played out like my group does it -- it is "hey everybody welcome back, we just finished Frost maiden and everyone is in the tavern. What did you do the last month? Cool cool, ok, let's go."
And that's ignoring the fact that rests are a key aspect of healing and recovery in the game at default.
None of which actually has a damn thing to do with crafting, except in the most broad sense of it is something that happens in downtime.
My players would be really angry if they couldn't do stuff in between adventures.
Also, not germane, but do you play a lot of adventures that are meant to be finished in a single day of game time? That's what, six to eight encounters, within 30 miles of a settlement of some sort? An encounter every 70 minutes, given the basic 8 hour period of the rules.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
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It's based on experience in games that actually made downtime (beyond the long rest in D&D) significantly valuable, such as Ars Magica. It hasn't generally been an issue in D&D (other than the 'five minute workday' problem) precisely because D&D has never made downtime particularly valuable -- item crafting in AD&D was limited by having permanent constitution drain from casting the Permanency spell, in 3e it was mostly limited by gold and at higher levels by xp costs (and tended to break the system even so), in 4e it was entirely limited by gold (and because of how consumables and item levels worked in 4e, didn't matter much anyway), in 5e it's basically just not worth doing.
Well, Ars has a very different structure, approach, and philosophy overall, so I'm not sure that the comparison can be made there.
Downtime has always been as valuable as the DM wants to make it. That's true from the 76 pub throught eh B?X through 1e and on.
You mention the constitution loss from permanency in 1e, but at the same time, Mages were supposed to be low con, and they also were supposed to have to find all their spells, never hand pick them. Haste was supposed to age you by three years.
Almost all of those things never happened in most games, though.
the introduction of proficiencies happened in 1e, as well (OA) -- and that was even more deeply explored in 2e, and it allowed a lot of stuff that we are talking about and never really had the kind of issues you are talking about. It simply isn't culturally a part of D&D as a whole to do so.
But, even if it was, wouldn't that be player driven and isn't the game as a whole meant to be about doing what is fun? If there is a conflict between DM and Players around it, they can work it out at their tables?
But this does help me to see where you are coming from in relation to the crafting system -- you would like to see a complete reworking of Rests to end their value to players (and, therefore, change how healing works throughout the game as a ripple effect of that) and you can generally be placed in the "no instcraft" category, and that you would prefer no crafting system in place (and now I have a better understanding of why).
Thank you for that.
I have to say that your concerns do not strike me as a problem for the vast majority of groups, however -- I do not think it would meet that 80% threshold of popularity that is so important to the designers. So arguing against it isn't going t do much good,overall -- it will be there even if it is simply in a slightly modified Xanathar's format, and rests aren't going away (indeed, they are becoming much more important in the next edition and in the opposite sense of your approach).
Not saying they aren't valid -- merely that you are tilting at windmills the same way I do about the optional features not being supported in DDB or the way they wrecked the hell out of all the classes. None of those concerns are going to shift anything in terms of what we see in the UAs or even the final product, because they are essentially small pop minority concerns in a popularity system.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
No, I want resting to be limited by something other than in-game time, because absent a ticking clock scenario, in-game time doesn't actually mean anything to the players.
That's a valid point from your position. I thank you for the correction.
Given that right now they do have a crafting system in the game, and it is at the bare minimum going to remain, and that the resting system impacts every character class, do you have any constructive suggestions that would not significantly disrupt those existing systems and still be popular with 80% of the player base in your best estimation?
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
80% of the player base doesn't actually care about crafting so "don't change anything" is the easiest solution there. My standard for a good crafting system is "encourages going out adventuring", either because it's useless, or because you can't actually do it without adventuring. The existing crafting system does accomplish that goal.
Except that I suspect 80% of the player base *does* care about crafting.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
The fact that it's been sitting there largely unchanged since 2017 (XGtE) argues otherwise. People might be mildly interested, but most of them don't actively care.
that...
isn't actually evidence of an absence of desire on the part of the player base.
Here, reddit, assorted fan mags and their articles, YT, and other sources all generally point to a much increase interest that begins around 2020 and just continues to grow. THey haven't release a new "to everything", likely because they were already working on the One D&D stuff. Hell, it's coming up on the poplar services far more often.
One could argue that the release of Bastions indicates they are revisiting it, as well, since Bastions engage with a crafting system.
I mean, there hasn't been a lot of interest in Bastion type systems until *very* recently, but by the same logic since they've never done one there isn't any interest in them. It really a bad point of reference.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Really, none of that is an indicator of anything. You can create noise like that with 0.01% of the player base. The real sign of an unmet desire would be Wizards and/or a notable 3PP press producing something that actually sells.
And the great thing is they can choose not to.
there isnt an existing crafting system
Yes there is. They just don't get used much.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dmg/between-adventures#CraftingaMagicItem
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/xgte/downtime-revisited#CraftinganItem
that can barley be considered a system. its more of a basic framework. Though I am using it as a starting point for my own system i am devising.
Tell that to whoever came up with the Ranger and Monk classes. And Barbarian. And arguably Sorcerer. Self-sufficiency has been a core fantasy of the game for a long time now.
This is really good insight imo. Players can't ever truly know what's coming in an adventure so it behooves them (and their characters) to prepare as much as they can. Get as powerful as possible. There's simply no reason not to.
A good system acknowledges this fact and makes it part of the core assumptions so you need not waste time. Passive Perception was designed for this! The best choice was to look at everything so they just said, "let's assume they're always looking at everything." That way you get to skip all the instances of "I look closely at the door," "I look at the chest," "I look at the hallway," etc.
This is the basic system I have devised, going a little more in depth then whats in the book. This is for magic items only
Crafting Formula
Spell Slots Required + Materials Required + Time Required + Gold Cost + DC
Each day the character must spend 25 gold and 8 hours to make a Arcana check of the DC, if the check succeeds they can add a day's work, if the check fails that day's work is not applied. If the check fails by more than 10 the enchantment fails completely and all money spent and materials use is lost.
Multiple characters can combine their efforts to create a magic item if each of them meets the level prerequisite. Each character can contribute spells, spell slots, and components, as long as everyone participates during the entire crafting process. Each character can contribute 25 gp worth of effort for each day spent helping to craft the item.
If multiple characters are participating in enchanting of an item a roll of a natural 20 will counter a failed check on that day's worth of work.
Common Magic Items
Base Spell Slots: 6 Spell Levels (can be a mix of any level combination)
Materials Required: Varies by item
Time Required: 2 Days (8 hours each day)
Gold Cost: 50 GP (25 each day)
DC: 12
Uncommon Magic Items
Base Spell Slots: 10 Spell Levels (can be a mix of any level combination)
Materials Required: Varies by item
Time Required: 20 Days (8 hours each day)
Gold Cost: 500 GP (25 each day)
DC: 15
Rare Magic Items
Base Spell Slots: 30 Spell Levels (can be a mix of any level combination)
Materials Required: Varies by item
Time Required: 100 Days (8 hours each day)
Gold Cost: 2500 GP (25 each day)
DC: 16
Very Rare Magic Items
Base Spell Slots: 50 Spell Levels (can be a mix of any level combination)
Materials Required: Varies by item
Time Required: 400 Days (8 hours each day)
Gold Cost: 10,000 GP (25 each day)
DC: 19
Legendary Magic Items
Base Spell Slots: 75 Spell Levels (can be a mix of any level combination)
Materials Required: Varies by item
Time Required: 2000 Days (8 hours each day)
Gold Cost: 50,000 GP (25 each day)
DC: 22
This is jsut a generic guide, I am working on a Item by item cost and formula break down using the discerning merchants price guide and Hamund's Harvesting Handbook from GMS Guild as reference points for item costs and Material components.
Some things here
so, if you are saying portraiture took 180 hours for reasons that have nothing to do with how long it takes to paint, then its not really relvent to crafting time. Thats more a case of working with nobles takes 140 hours. painting might take 40. I am an artist, it varies greatly from artist to artist. I'm fairly slow, but i can go to the city in my area, and see portrait artists do paintings way better than dark age artists in 30 minutes.
I went to college for mech engineering, and you apparently know mech engineers. So I know a bit about manufacturing. There is a lot you can do with a mill or a lathe, you probably aren't doing every part of any crafting process. Weavers would probably buy textiles, or reclaim it. Time breakdowns have a lot to do with economics, workflows, specific needs of the crafter. Mansion has whatever inside it you want it to have. There is no qualitative difference between a fireplace, furnishings and a workshop. A workshop just contains furniture with a different shape. The servants can do things, mend clothes and perform tasks humans could is specifically mentioned. Things taken from the mansion might disappear, but that doesnt matter. You bring materials, you shape and work the materials in the mansion. A nail I bring from bag of holding(or a plain pack) hammered in by a mansion hammer by an unseen servant would still be hammered when I leave.
But part of the issue with trying to deep dive here, is that dark ages with the world and magic 5e presents makes no real sense. Wizards go to colleges, (any person can learn magic) study for years and can manipulate the world more easily and in ways we can't duplicate with current technology. They have sending stones as a low level tech, the can mend things low level. There is no way that you can have this level of magical technology, information sharing, and institutional development and be in the dark ages. Something as simple as a steam engine. (simple in concept, an object that creates motion with a common resource) revolutionized the world in a short time frame. There is no way a society with the power of cantrips existing wouldn't be more advanced than this. Every craftsman would be some level of wizard. Spells would be created for craftsmanship, not just adventuring.(craftsmen spend 1000s of hours doing this, learning basic spells is a lesser task). It would have to be an intentional and rigorously enforced separation of knowledge.
But this is fine, because its a fantasy and we hand wave things, and use our best judgement to smooth it over to tell a story, or play a game. Thats the thing here, we all know most of dnd is designed as a game. Its a far cry from realism, or even consistency from lore to game. So really its mostly a matter of what makes sense for the game, and in 5e, and ttrpg in general, a lot of that depends what the players want to do. The DMG's purpose is to create a framework for fleshing out games to match your table. A crafting system there would be for people who like crafting. And should be able to be incorporated into a game. The explanation of how comes after that idea. Like a bag of holding which is merely uncommon, which in our world would revolutionalize everything.
Well, the issue for crafting isn't just "how long does it take that person to do it", though. The issue really is "how long does it take for that craftwork to be completed from start to finish".
As for "way better", well you do have access to premixed bases, pre stretched canvas, safe pigments from typically synthetic sources and a whole lot more stuff that is wholly and entirely a product of the technological advances since then (speaking of, did you catch the stuff about the non-ochre reds and Da Vinci's invention of one of the most popular pint formulas?), and some pretty significant training in perspective and perception that simply did not exist widely previously.
You mention the steam engine. Were you aware that they had the Steam engine in BCE? You mention mills and lathes -- but those were not only not common, they wEren't well known or used often. In short, a lot of what you are pointing out is is what feeds into your later point -- that the level of technology we should be looking at in D&D shouldn't be based in the 600 to 1400 time period (6000 BCE to 1500 AD broad).
Much of what you go into after that is the use of magic in place of technology, and that's a valid point -- it is how we get Eberron. However, note that Eberron is not as popular as FR. I, for one, wouldn't use such a world that involves "magitech" unless it was a modern day setting. And by Modern day, I don't mean steampunk, I mean 2025 or later. For a really simple reason: not everyone can use magic.
That point of yours is actually not a rule. It is a setting concept, a bit of Lore that is specific to a given world, and on my world, it fails. you see, while everyone can use magic, most people have so little that it exhausts them to try, and can only do it in a ritual circle. Say, roughly, 3 points of energy, use all your energy you pass out, and a cantrip costs 1 point. What makes a Mage different is their ability to hold that energy -- in broader terms, that they can gather enough to use a spell slot.
And everything I just noted is part of Lore, not mechanics. Which i do because you were arguing that all the worlds created to use D&D operate with magic as a technology, and most do not.
Absolutely some do. Not even arguing that. I also can't say that is isn't a slim majority -- I can argue that it is not the 80% level that the designers seek. Artificer is still not a wholly beloved class, and versions of it have been around since the mid 80's.
When you say "There is no way that you can have this level of magical technology, information sharing, and institutional development" you are making presumptions about a lot of folks worlds -- over half of which are entirely custom worlds, because more than half of the games that are played are played on worlds that are not a creation, even a little, of any of the published D&D worlds -- and trust me, you do not want to do that. It insults all those other people, lol.
"There is no way a society with the power of cantrips existing wouldn't be more advanced than this. Every craftsman would be some level of wizard. Spells would be created for craftsmanship, not just adventuring." is your opinion, and it is not a popular opinion among most D&D players (not all, merely most). Because it isn't a new opinion, and yet D&D persists with people wielding swords and we don't have repeating rifles driven by magical cartridges and we don't suborbital platforms launched by magic and ...
... do not think that I am saying those things are bad. I have helped people create such worlds, so I completely understand your point. But by the exact same basis of "it has to work this way!", there are fantasy worlds where the physics and chemistry that make a lot of these things possible do not exist -- even with magic. Indeed, because of magic. I am only one of several folks with PHDs at my table, and seriously, I twist them in knots because they keep wanting to apply real world physics to a game.
Go out and look up worldbuilding forums and sites and you will find that there is a LOT of that kind of discourse out there. We worldbuilders are very particular about that kind of thing, and I can remember a six month, 10,000 reply thread from the 90's, on the subject.After all, we are talking about magic -- and magic does not have to replace technology, and magic does not have to be technology. Sometimes, it is just magic.
The game world I have is still an Iron cored planet, but the iron isn't found within the crust -- but aluminum is, and then it is found in actual deposits of metallic ore that do not require precipitation, merely heat. THe manufacturing system is completely different. Iron is rare, and that is mostly from an extrasolar source that is no longer even remotely possible, save for a limited degree with an oort cloud that has an atypical structure.
Super useless information -- except it also provides a lot of reason why some stuff works and other things don't. Nor is my world an outlier in that -- stuff like that is very common.
Incidentally, you mention "rigorously enforced and controlled separation of knowledge" -- guess what: that was the norm between 600 AD and 1300 AD. It goes back even further -- historically, the knowledge of ways and means of creating or locating materials for creating was held tighter than trade secrets are today, and with far more serious penalties (death). Marco Polo's story is a huge example of that. Why do you think we are just now discovering and figuring out Romans built waterproof concrete, or why we still haven't figured out what greek fire was?
The part that will make you pull your hair out is that I don't disagree with you, lol. D&D needs a whole host of spells that deal with and replace technology in it, though -- and have you see them, or do you just think that they should be there, despite 5 editions where they still haven't done that?
On this part we are both wholly in agreement. The big key is that if it is something that is going to make it into the 2024 books, it has to be something that meets that 80% popularity metric.
It isn't "what is possible, what makes sense, what's the coolest thing", it is "what makes 80% of all players happy", is simple, easy, and meets the vast majority of the "pretend fantasy era of the imaginary 600 AD to 1400 AD/Tolkien's Middle Earth but different" games out there. Like I said, they want that kind of "realism light" I'm talking about.
Because that is the fantasy world that they want to deal with.
I mentioned my fellow players having assorted education -- mine is in sociology and psychology and religion (guess what I focus on in my world building Just wild guess, lol). I have a huge love of history and all that and my top five favorite books are all reference books, including one that is a timeline of global events going back over 6000 years. Technology is a section of it, and I'll tell ya, most people seriously overestimate the level of technology that was available prior to about 1600.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds